another lazy and overpriced flash game, though not as much as botanicula, their much older, yet more expensive release. this is also thankfully shorter (~2 hours instead of 5+) but the same 'click everything, see if it does anything whether it's logical or not' formula. the single-screen(ish) puzzles would be much better than navigating mazes in botanicula, except there's more unskippable arcade nonsense than puzzles. flappy bird, space invaders, pac-man and possibly more, that's where I quit. didn't think they could do worse than botanicula but here we are. the only setting is windowed mode, nothing for the incredibly annoying audio, let alone separate volumes for music, sfx and irritating gibberish. I had to completely mute the game after a matter of minutes, which improved the experience considerably. there's also level select, unlike in botanicula. still, if you want to click on things for potentially funny animations, stick to humongous titles (putt-putt, etc.), they're done a lot better.
it's a flash game sold for 15 eur. manual save anytime but only 6 slots and there's no level select, so you might want to use them for that, there are 6 altogether. a single volume setting, can't separately turn off the repetitive music, annoying sfx and even more annoying gibberish. windowed mode and a bunch of languages for the 3 words of text in the entire game. some cutscenes are skippable. it's also completely unintuitive, just click on everything (often very fast, to complete a sequence or whatever), see what happens, but not in a fun humongous way (putt-putt, etc.). often you have to sit and wait until something randomly occurs, and no way of knowing if you're doing it for useless creature cards or 'quest' items needed for progression. cards unlock bonus cutscenes at the end, that's when you actually find out how many there are, without the chance to get the missing ones. while on a level you'll have no idea what's missing. great design. levels are also basically labyrinths, though there's a map after a while, shows current position, no fast travel. the absolute worst part (besides nonsensical 'puzzles') is how inconsistent controls are. you might have to click, click and hold, click and drag, or just push stuff around without clicking. and by the time you think you have it down comes the tongue thing on level 5, where despite everything else experienced before, you only need to *click* it, then let go and move the mouse around, dragging doesn't work, even though it easily could and should. I don't mind kids' games, humongous titles are among my all-time favorites, but this is not good, nor fun for the most part. level 5 was already too much, then the last one managed to outdo it with a finicky shmup section and more arcade nonsense.
set many years later, with completely different art style and gameplay, it has very little to do with the whispered world. good news, playing that is ill-advised and this recaps/spoils it in the first 5 minutes anyway. also has very little to do with point & click adventures. it's a gamepad-centric interactive movie a'la telltale, full of qte, timed (sometimes with a hidden timer) interactions with fail states, unskippable cutscenes and no manual saving. only sparse checkpoints, can't quit on your own terms without losing progress. instead of autosaving after every action, they only happen between locations, with a long loading screen every time between every single screen, makes puzzles with a lot of back and forth even more tedious. what's worse, gotta rewatch lengthy cutscenes next time because saving happens before, not after. no active inventory, very basic controls, both mouse buttons do the same, no rebinds, and not every line of dialog is skippable. no rhyme or reason, just another thing done badly. it's very pretty yet again, with much better voiceovers, except spot makes annoying noises now. resolutions, overall gfx quality setting, windowed mode, v-sync, buggy separate volumes (music only takes effect after a load screen), spoken and written languages, subtitles with customizable size and optionally instant (great if you hate the annoying typewriter effect as much as me), various hint settings (outline on mouseover, hints on top, hotspot indicator, object names). nothing to make shorter/easier work of quick-time events, including timed choices. accessibility is for the birds. no chapter select after completion either. another missed opportunity to create something great. just like tww, its best and almost only positive aspect is the presentation and that doesn't matter in the slightest. and what's with the 12-hour lie on the store page? it's 6 hours tops, half of which is loading screens.
can save anytime over multiple slots, there's a sometimes misplaced hotspot indicator (only with space, has to be held) and a few puzzles are skippable. separate volumes, subtitles, and while I bounced off it many years ago, this time I finished it, though with extensive walkthrough checks to get it over with faster. the rest is even more disappointing. 1024x768 is the max resolution in the 'special edition' of a 2014 game. really slow movement (can leave locations instantly but can't double-click to move faster, cheat engine's speedhack feature to the rescue). illogical puzzles (or just plain tedious, like blowing out 15 million candles or navigating the village after). incredibly annoying characters and voiceovers (not just the protagonist). the mouse has to be held instead of a click to interact. using an item on something works with a click, why not everything else? and most of the game, including the inventory and many items, are so dark and brown that it's hard to make stuff out even with the hotspot indicator, even if it happens to indicate the correct location. so it basically fails at pointing and clicking and mostly on adventuring as well.
great visuals and voice acting, chapter select, manual saving anytime, random autosaves. only 3 slots, the autosave indicator is practically unnoticable and it doesn't save on exit on its own, far from perfect. textures only show properly on the 'epic' graphics setting, making the game unplayable otherwise, as critical information is simply not visible. only a global gfx quality setting is bad enough and inexcusable when it literally breaks the game. and with any dpi scaling enabled (bigger text in windows, etc.), can't change resolutions or fov. performance really tanks starting with chapter 3, guess by then they gave up on what little optimization happened. settings are resolutions, windowed mode, v-sync, field of view, brightness, separate volumes, rebindable controls, invert y axis, sensitivity, vibration, spoken and subtitles languages. then toggles for a crosshair, easily readable journal font, barely noticable, mostly useless hotspot indicator, smooth camera rotation, head bobbing, flashing lights, closed captions, motion blur. an always run setting would've been necessary, and better journal navigation and document examination instead of always having to zoom in and click 'read' for a non-handwritten version even if the readable journal font is on. crashing a few times in chapter 6 was also a concern and cause for frustration. puzzles are a mixed bag at best, the end of chapter 3, the constellations in chapter 6, and simon says in chapter 4 being the low points. turning on close captions shows the simon solution, so there's that. there are timing-based puzzles in chapter 5 too, the dreaded underwater level, and no puzzle skip. exploration is hindered by performance, the useless hotspot indicator, controls and slow movement even with sprint (when it's available). unskippable credits too. bring up the menu and leave, but then no post-credits scene for you, and with 2 endings, gotta watch the whole thing twice (or just youtube it).
customizable difficulty is great, more checkpoints, fewer or no enemies, etc. make it more accessible for folks like me who only very rarely dabble in runners/rhythm games. however, non-rebindable controls, especially in a game like this, make it a lot less accessible and completely unacceptable. they never had plans to add rebinding, already bad enough, but they didn't even bother to list every available key in-game, had to search the forums for a full list. and if you play without enemies, kick won't be tutorialized, you'll first face it (sans prompt) during a boss fight. furthermore: settings, controls and the exit button are only available in the main menu, not level select and definitely not while playing a level, so forfeit progress and press esc 15 times, or try random keys with each attempt. regularly not being able to see where you're going or falling because of the scenery and the constantly changing camera angles is another problem, on top of random stuff suddenly appearing right in front of you. these would be bad enough on their own, but some of it has to be done while the character is sped up. what joy. the narrator becomes annoying after a while but muting it won't remove the wait before starting a level or the game itself, as obviously lines still play silently. the world 3 music is horrible too but turning off music in a rhythm game is not a great idea. and menu navigation sfx seems to ignore volume settings, making it really loud regardless. can't remember how difficulty worked in runner 2, pretty sure it wasn't this customizable (neither were the controls btw), but I got a further there (gave up somewhere in world 5), whereas here I stopped near the end of world 3 with the vertical fans and precise landing positions and zero checkpoints.
mostly enjoyable casual puzzle platformer with metroidvania elements, come back later with more abilities. no jumping, you can climb stuff, even optionally auto-climb. no health, fall damage or dying. can't always fall off ledges by accident, there's a climb back option sometimes, not sure how to tell without trying though and it's really frustrating. movement speed is not too bad but there are some big issues: annoying gibberish, typewriter and shake effect during dialog, unskippable, unnecessarily drawn-out cutscenes and credits, the inability to zoom out the camera and lack of fast travel besides back to the upgrades guy. plus there are sections that require quick action (not for platforming) and there's no accessibility setting for those. saves on exit, rebindable controls, separate volumes, resolutions, windowed mode, closed captions, a few languages, overall gfx quality setting, anti-aliasing, framerate options, v-sync, brightness, vertical and horizontal flip, mouse sensitivity, colorblind mode, optional objective marker (useless, only works for main goals), hold/press toggle for crouching (slower movement, it's a mouse), improved contrast, manual/automatic camera recenter, extra help with notes. good stuff, settings available anytime, and of the 137 collectibles only 80 are needed to unlock all the upgrades, some of which are just fluff, and the last one is the not all that useful collectible locator to find the remainder a bit more easily if you want. unfortunately, there's a random game-breaking bug not letting you climb lattices anymore. the dev's been aware since october 2024, never addressed it, but restarting the game fixes it. it's not a good look either way but at least it's completable and quitting doesn't lose progress.
rebindable but clunky controls, making mandatory platforming and combat even more frustrating. long loading times. annoying typewriter effect for text display. annoying gibberish without a separate speech volume setting. hunger, stamina and constant resource-gathering to keep them up, along with non-refilling health. hold instead of press to interact and pick stuff up. from what I've read it gets worse later with a questionable reputation system and whatnot but I threw in the towel after an hour or so. price is crazy too.
generic card game done really badly. level select doesn't highlight imperfect levels. no on-screen star rating progress. really annoying and excessive 'card face changes after x turns' nonsense. endless mode is pointless. basic settings like volumes only available in the main menu, progress is stored in the registry. power-ups are per-level, used instantly when bought and prices go up with each one THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE GAME. jokers and wildcards are lost at the end of the level. can't use the spade to remove the last remaining card, its very purpose. offering 5 extra cards for 100 gold at the end of an incomplete level is very mobiley but potentially helpful, except there's no confirmation and the button is right under the last card. another example of stellar game design, a misclick losing you a bunch of money. more never-before-seen idiocy: undo changes the next card. missed matching the 7, you see the next is a king, undo, match the 7, draw next card and it won't be the king again. are you serious? achievements on steam (I played it there) are bugged as well. navigation is awkward. game mode selection comes up when starting a new game, no confirm button, close the window to continue. single screens of text with a skip button when it should say continue. the level complete screen should have more buttons (menu, map, garden) and continue shouldn't lead to the garden every single time, whether you can upgrade something or not, but load the next level. overall, a whole lot worse than most other games in the genre and the bar isn't exactly high. instead of fixes (including bad grammar), devs told me of their 15-year experience and intentional design decisions based on player feedback. no idea who'd think some of these are convenient or acceptable, they're baffling and I'm glad no other solitaire does them.
horribly optimized (or not at all), lazy low-medium-high overall gfx setting, rebindable but abysmal controls. losing a life respawns you at the last checkpoint (often before a cutscene, of course), but dying a few times (or the game crashing, which it does on the regular) means back to the very beginning of the level and screw that mine chase at the end of level 5. FIVE! no difficulty or accessibility options, like skipping to the next section after failing a bunch of times. one could (and one did) procure an unlimited lives trainer, but with all the crashing it's not much use. come to think of it, it's actually a blessing, otherwise I might've wasted more time on this piece of trash, trying to progress. the presentation (unless you're playing on low) and skippable cutscenes are its very few positives but again, checkpoints are often before them and logos on startup can't be bypassed without deleting the file, so that doesn't work well enough either.
